CPAC 2014: Ben Carson: Boot pols who raise debt limit

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Ben Carson rallied conservatives Saturday against lawmakers who voted to raise the debt ceiling, but also urged Republicans to keep their eye on the bigger picture come the fall midterms.

Carson, a former Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon, spoke at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference a year after breaking onto the political scene for criticizing President Barack Obama at a National Prayer Breakfast the president attended. On Saturday, he lambasted what he called an irresponsible handling of the national debt.

“When we get through with the primary season, if your person hasn’t won — you can call them whatever you want to call them, you can call them a RINO [Republican in name only], you can call them a tea-bagger, you can call them whatever you want — vote for them, OK?” Carson said. “We need those people.”

Supporters behind a Draft Ben Carson for President Committee this year had a visible presence at the conservative confab, and many gave Carson a standing ovation and unfurled banners reading “Run, Ben, Run” and “Carson 2016” during his roughly 20-minute speech.

Carson addressed critics, referring to the firestorm last year after he said that straight marriage was “a well-established, fundamental pillar of society and no group — be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality, it doesn’t matter what they are — they don’t get to change the definition.”

“I will continue to defy the P.C. [political correctness] police who have tried in many cases to shut me up,” Carson said Saturday.

“Of course gay people should have the same rights as everyone else,” Carson added, “but they don’t get extra rights.”

Carson also touched on controversial comments about the “47 percent” by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012, saying that he once belonged to the lower-income half of the country and that Republicans should work to create opportunities for those people.

“I know that there are a lot of people in that 47 percent who are decent, hard-working Americans who want to realize the American dream,” Carson said.